Independent (UK): "Embassy kept in the dark as guns smuggled into Mexico"

[friendly_iconoclast]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/embassy-kept-in-the-dark-as-guns-smuggled-into-mexico-2326389.html

Embassy kept in the dark as guns smuggled into Mexico


More than 2,000 weapons were allowed to 'walk' from Texas and Arizona gun shops during the operation

By Guy Adams in Los Angeles

A botched experiment that saw US law-enforcement agents allow shipments of illegally purchased firearms to be smuggled into Mexico, where they were promptly used in violent crimes, has been described as "the perfect storm of idiocy" in a congressional report....

....The report, released in Washington yesterday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, contains criticism of Fast and Furious, which was carried out despite objections from street-level ATF agents who believed it would inevitably lead to a bloodbath.

It reveals that the US embassy in Mexico was "indefensibly" kept in the dark about the operation by senior ATF figures, who later attempted to cover up its existence. It was also carried out against the advice of the bureau's then-attache to Mexico, Darren Gil, whose concerns about it led to what he described as a screaming match with superiors.

"Hey, when are they going to shut this, to put it bluntly, damn investigation down," Gil recalled telling his bosses, after growing worried about a growing wave of crime carried out with guns allowed into the Mexico during Fast and Furious....

[Ghost Dog]

1. Jesus. And I've just finished reading Don Winslow's

"The Power of the Dog".